Not just books …

As a freelancer, I write about many topics for many publications, and this was a fun one: For The Philadelphia Citizen, I wrote about the unexpected trauma some people experience while serving on jury duty.

I also talked about the article on WURD.

From the story’s lede:

When Fran Melmed was called to jury duty this year, she considered not showing up. Between 2009 and 2011, she’d served as a juror during two separate homicide trials. One involved the death of a 15-year-old boy; the other was death by stomping. Both ended with guilty verdicts. Both “linger with me to this day,” she says.

Still, she answered the court’s summons in November, hoping she wouldn’t get chosen to serve again.

“It felt like stress was radiating from my body because I didn’t want to get picked,” Melmed says. “I couldn’t get out of fight or flight mode.”

Melmed was chosen for a civil jury trial, and afterwards, with the urging of Jury Commissioner Patrick Martin, she sought advice from the newly launched Post-Trial Support for Jurors program.

During the 30-minute phone call, Melmed’s counselor talked with her about mindful breathing and walked through a visualization exercise that could help calm her if she’s called for jury duty again.

“She was fantastic,” Melmed says. “I felt supported, and I felt heard and I think both of those things are important as part of the process of jury service.”

So, too, does Jury Commissioner Martin.

“We’re bringing random people off the street: librarians, teachers, plumbers, who may not realize what they’re getting into, and we hit them with this,” Martin says.“We ask a lot of our jurors, and I feel like they’re an afterthought.”

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